An anthology of poetry & prose: a Make Our Book sampler

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose Silver Oak School

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose Copyright Š 2017 Silver Oak School Silver Oak School asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved.

Proudly published by MakeOurBook.com For information about Silver Oak School contact British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

First Published 2017 Printed and bound in the UK

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 3

Introduction We have created this sampler to show you how your book might look, using a fictional school we've called "Silver Oak School". The sampler contains anonymised writing from a Make Our Book customer and examples of a Foreword and Acknowledgements.

We are also taking this opportunity to share our founder's story – turn to the last chapter to read it.

We'd love to hear from you if you'd like us to help your school or organisation create your own book to treasure.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 5

Foreword This year’s Book Week was a wonderful event. The children were inspired by visiting authors, challenged by a whole range of book based competitions, thrilled to visit the library and wrapped up in stories new and old.

A love of books, stories and reading is the most precious and important gift that we can give the children at school, and our annual Book Week is an important and very enjoyable part of nurturing and developing that love.

Speaking of gifts, this anthology is the most wonderful gift for our children. It is our sincerest wish that at some point in the distant future they will sit down with their personal collection, enjoy the window that this gives them on to their past selves and remember with great fondness their time at school.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 7

Form 1 Form 1 discussed the characteristics of giants and then tried to find as many interesting ways of describing them using all five senses.

E Banner • 11

A river E Banner

R

iver Winding through the valley Blue and sparkly A long way to go

The children of form IB • 13

Giants The children of form IB

G

iants look like humongous, ginormous sky-scrapers.

They sound like Big Ben chiming 12 o’clock And feel like rough, unwashed clothes.

Giants taste like giant chickens and mouldy cheese And they smell like expired mangoes.

Giants are colossal.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 15

Form 2 The boys in Form 2 have looked at traditional stories in their English lessons, focusing on the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk”, looking at the characters and writing character descriptions. This helped to stimulate the boys’ imaginations when it came to write their poems about giants.

The boys worked in small groups, sharing their ideas, and wrote giant poems that were adapted from a type of poem called a cinquain.

A cinquain is a five-line poem that describes a person, place or thing. The first line is both a one-word title and a noun. The second line is two adjectives. For the third line the boys wrote either three more adjectives or three present participles. A four-word phrase about the subject forms the fourth line and the fifth line is a synonym of the title.

16 • SA Fand

Giants Can Be Small SA Fand

B

rutal, stinky Stomping, booming, bellowing Cold-blooded, horrible beasts Podgy

18 • Joanna Treholm

The Glorious Tree Joanna Treholm

A

pples, pears and birds.

Another line of beautiful poetry.

20 • C Brown, M Raini, A Frank

Giants C Brown, M Raini, A Frank

H

airy, huge Fat, mean, angry My name is Derek Monster

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 23

Form 3 The Form 3 boys were inspired to write poems using alliteration, as they were already using alliteration to describe settings and characters in stories.

Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of each or most of the words in a sentence.

Alliteration is used in poetry to create different effects, either for a reflective description or to create more drama or danger. The boys had so much fun using dictionaries and thesauri to help them to write the most interesting alliterative poems!

AA Smith • 25

A Happy Hippogryph AA Smith

A

hippogryph has two wings bigger than a fierce fighting eagle.

It has the head of a hungry hunting lion.

It has the lazy legs of an otter.

Its tingly teeth are as sharp as a violent vampire’s.

Its fluffy fur is as soft as cotton candy.

He hears sharply so he hears from across the wide world.

He roars so loudly you can hear him from 50 miles away, But to his friendly family he is sweet, soft and helpful.

He is a happy hippogryph!

J Green • 27

The Scary Savannah J Green

O

nce a brave bold, brainy, brilliant, bright, burly boy, called Bob, sauntered into the scorching, sizzling, sultry, sweltering savannah.

Then he saw some synchronised, sweaty, sticky, sneaky, selfish snakes slithering slowly, snarling at something in the green, greasy, gangly, gawky grass.

So he ran rapidly right into eight elegant, energetic, entertaining, exciting elephants. Together they watched some wary, watchful wildebeest walking to the waterhole.

Then they watched a large, lethal lion lurk by the water and further along a hungry, hefty, huge, hulking hippo hiding in H2O. Close by, a cheerful, cheeky, charming cheetah chomped on a wild, weak, walloping, weeping warthog wife.

Suddenly a brutal, bulky, burly, bitter, blustering, bloodcurdling beast blasted out of blistering, boiling water, sending everyone scarpering, scattering, sprinting, and scurrying away.

K Rani • 29

The Monstrous Minotaur K Rani

O

n Monday my monstrous Minotaur was munching and munching.

On Tuesday the terrifying tyrannosaur was trotting through time.

On Wednesday the wilting warthog was whining and winning.

On Thursday the terrifying tiger was tired from trapping T-bone steaks.

On Friday he frightened and feared fish.

E Cahill • 31

The Bold Brave Beast E Cahill

A

t a terrifyingly, terrible tournament, in a gigantic, gargantuan field, there was a miniature, minuscule, insignificant, infinitesimal Persian pond!

A bold brave beast walked into a dark, dirty, dangerous dragon’s cave when a slithery snake strangled the bold brave beast.

Suddenly an angry alligator amusingly attacked the snake.

A crazy koala kicked the snake.

A clean crocodile cracked the koala’s leg.

Then an elegant entertaining elephant ran rapidly like a red running rooster and terribly trampled on all the amazing animals.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 33

Form 4 We chose to write Haikus because we came across several Haikus in our class reader ‘The Suitcase Kid’ by Jacqueline Wilson.

A Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Haiku poems contain 17 syllables written over 3 lines. The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. The art of conveying meaning within the constraints of 17 syllables was definitely a challenge that the boys took on skilfully. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we loved writing them!

Rowan M Barnes • 35

The Giant Who Is Frightened Rowan M Barnes

E

veryone be nice To the giant who’s frightened And only eats fruit.

Richard Amstra • 37

Medusa Power Richard Amstra

M

edusa has snakes, She turns people into stone.

Look away, or die!

Y Iman • 39

Giant Wishes Y Iman

I

am a giant.

I wish I was small like you.

I wish I was smart.

W Satler • 41

A Brave Giant W Satler

G

iant arms, huge legs, Massive muscles bulging wide, He is brave and fierce.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 43

Form 5 Form 5 boys wrote humorous limericks about giants and beasts. A limerick consists of five lines with the first, second, and fifth lines having seven to ten syllables. These lines rhyme and possess the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines only have to have five to seven syllables, and have to rhyme with each other and have the same rhythm.

44 • L Agieworth

Joe the Giant L Agieworth

T

here once was a giant called Joe, He loved to eat plain sticky dough.

He ate every day, And watched a great play, But that made him ever so slow.

B Charleston • 45

A Monster Called Pud B Charleston

T

here once was a monster called Pud, Who liked to roll in the mud.

He had so much fun, Then dried in the sun, To warm up his freezing cold blood.

46 • Alfred Gainsborough

The Beast from Japan Alfred Gainsborough

T

here once was a beast from Japan, Who always visited his gran, And so, when he lied, His gran always sighed, And made him eat ten bowls of bran.

Noel Graham • 47

Fred’s Bed Noel Graham

T

here once was a giant named Fred, His feet always stuck out of bed, So he got in a box, And put on some socks, And that’s how he sleeps instead.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 49

Form 6 Form 6 boys have studied the story of Beowulf where our eponymous hero successfully defeats the monster or giant, Grendel. Some boys seized the opportunity to write an antonym poem about Beowulf and Grendel, where the characters provide a useful contrast. Some boys wrote synonym poems, where the same idea is reinforced through the poem but expressed using different words; however, all poems had to adhere to a strict form of seven lines with the first and last lines consisting of just one word. The second and sixth line are two words long; the third and fifth line have three words; and the fourth line has four words. Not only is line length prescribed in this form, but also word choice. For example, the first, fourth and seventh lines have nouns; the second and sixth line comprise adjectives; and the third and fifth lines are verbs.

50 • P Brown

Giants are the same as Humans P Brown

G

iant Brutal, ground-trembling Smashing, feasting, stealing Devastating, hostile, eliminating, horror Humane, unconscious, deathly Contented, happy Human

AA Stiedhl • 51

Feelings AA Stiedhl

S

ad Miserable, unhappy Crying, weeping sobbing A world of isolation Celebrating, flying, leaping Success, joy Happy

52 • V Pranchitt

Beowulf and Grendel V Pranchitt

B

eowulf Mighty, powerful Fighting, caring, protecting Hero, giant, beast, fiend, Murdering, stalking, running, Stealthy, cruel Grendel

A Shelfi • 53

The Sun and the Moon A Shelfi

S

un Exploding, blinding Still standing, boiling Takes up 99% of our solar system’s mass Rotates, revolves, reflecting Illuminating, orbiting Moon

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 55

Form 7 Boys in Form 7 were inspired by Ottava Rima poems which require an adherence to eight lines in length and eleven syllables per line.The rhyme scheme consists of alternate rhyming lines culminating in a rhyming couplet.

56 • Susan Smith

A Midnight Feast Susan Smith

S

peedily did brutish dragon start swift flight, Above clouds, you glimpse gargantuan fiend roar.

Calm prey sleeping in sinister dead of night, Identifiable prey which slept, no more.

Within epic jaws of doom, lay limp prize-fight.

Meal satisfying pernicious carnivore.

Impish beast slumbers away from frail mankind, Gargoyle’s ’trocious dreams, dancing about in mind.

R Lemon • 57

Shall I compare Thee to a Frost Giant?

R Lemon

S

hall I compare thee to a frost giant?

Thou art like a cold temperature, The scaly skin and cold midwinter climate, But unlike the fire giant, the other.

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

The eternal blazes will never end, But thy for what will be the final fate, For when the frost giant comes on the bend.

For thou both meet, who is the sinner?

For who will burn in the deep dull hell?

For end, who shall prevail as a winner?

For thou the winner had been called Ka’el.

Both giants fight, each with their own flaws, For who will end, thou there being no laws?

58 • A Grehnoln

Airplanes!

A Grehnoln

I

met an old man from New York City, Who told me a story of a machine ‘Made of metal!’ he said. ‘So, so pretty.

‘Better than a big research submarine!’

How can this be? This massive metal beast, More powerful than a ten-engine car.

This legend of man, better than good yeast, This machine, reaching higher than a star.

Made of aluminum, light in the air Employees are nice, but the food less so.

When you get on, you get gum in your hair, To get on though, requires lots of dough.

You are an airplane, a beast in the sky.

When you are on, you feel like you can fly.

A Truner • 59

The Story of my Beast A Truner

S

hall I tell you of my wonderful beast?

Starting as small as a belittled shrew In the middle of the night he would feast, And so, he grew and grew, quick like bamboo, My small and cute beast what happened to you?

For when he grew he grew scales and large wings, Oh, what happened to my small forest shrew?

He flew and snorted fire, feared by kings, His sounds were an interminable drone, I recall when he fit in my pocket, He was a sovereign worshipped on a throne, He shot through the sky like a dark comet, Although he was worshipped very highly, He always found his humble roots with me.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 61

Acknowledgements This anthology would not have been possible without the support of the entire Silver Oak community.

Thank you to the parents for lending your support to the school and also allowing us to educate your budding authors. Thank you also to the authors of the book for their boundless creativity and enthusiasm.

I am grateful to the entire Silver Oak staff team for going above and beyond expectations in meeting the numerous additional requirements that Book Week brings and to all of the visitors that contributed to this year’s very successful event. I owe particular thanks to the head of Literacy for her tireless hard work in helping to co-ordinate Book Week and this anthology.

The children of Silver Oak are truly in your debt and hugely grateful.

An Anthology of Poetry & Prose • 63

About Make Our Book Make Our Book started, as many ventures do, as a labour of love.

In 2003 Emma Barnes co-founded the award-winning UK independent publisher Snowbooks, after a successful but unrewarding career as a supply chain buyer and management consultant. To this day, Snowbooks gives her joy and an unending sense of accomplishment. It's a fantastic feeling to be able to find new authors and bring their books, with love and attention, to an eager readership. Snowbooks specialise in sci-fi and fantasy fiction, which really allows the imagination to roam free!

In 2011 Emma and her colleagues established another company - General Products Ltd - to launch their flagship software Bibliocloud.com to the publishing

64 • Index

industry. Nearly a decade as an independent publisher meant they lived and breathed the challenges of book publishing, and it often comes down to good systems and processes. Accordingly, Emma learned web development, wrote Bibliocloud, and found herself in the perfect position to make the software she'd written to run Snowbooks available to a wider audience.

Bibliocloud is now used around the world by all sorts of diverse publishers, including the British Museum, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and a wide range of University Presses including Sydney, Leuven, Liverpool, UCL, Goldsmiths.

Bibliocloud won the Futurebook Best Technology Innovation award, and also won the IPG Services to Independent Publishing award for its endeavours, voted for by their customers.

Whilst all this was happening, in 2008 Emma had a gorgeous baby son. He's a strapping 9 year old now, who is lucky to go to a lovely school in Buckinghamshire.

He's the apple of her eye.

When Emma's son started in Reception, back in 2014, his form teacher was the school's literacy co-ordinator, so they often found themselves chatting about their shared love of books, reading and writing. They soon thought it would be a lovely idea to use Emma's

Index • 65

publishing skills to help the school. They planned to take over Book Week in 2014, and get all the children to write a piece of poetry or prose about 'Springtime'.

Emma would typeset it and get it printed, and they would ask the parents to cover the costs of the print.

And it was a wonderful success! It was great to be part of a meaningful project that elevated book week from a day of dressing up as a Disney character to something with a lasting legacy and a real sense of achievement. In fact, it was so successful that the school chose to produce another book the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that!

Emma was proudly showing off her son's school's latest book to one of her Snowbooks authors, who at that time was a teacher at a large girls' preparatory school in London. He immediately could see what a great project it could be for Book Week, and so Emma coached his children to create another anthology. The parents, teachers and Head were over the moon. When Emma's author moved teaching posts to another school – this time, a boys' preparatory, again in London – he was keen to repeat the success and we again created a lovely anthology about 'Giants and Beasts', for the boys to treasure. It was a wonderful to be able to provide a platform for a significant piece of creative work in an

66 • Index

otherwise highly academically-driven curriculum.

As interest grew in the school's books, it became clear that we could help a larger number of children achieve the same sort of proud delight as we'd seen over the last five years. And so – again using the web development expertise developed whilst writing Bibliocloud – Emma wrote the website https://makeourbook.com, from which this sampler is automatically produced.

We would love to be able to help your children achieve published author status, to join the hundreds of children we've helped already. You can't match the delight and deep satisfaction that this project brings to children. They have to work hard, and when their book arrives they feel important - and can share that with their families. And you get to tick off plenty of learning objectives, too! It's a lovely thing that we do, and we'd love you to be able to experience it as well. Why not drop us a line – emma@makeourbook.com – to have a chat about how we can help you to hold your own book in your hands, just like this one.

Index • 67

Index A Grehnoln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 A Shelfi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 A Truner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 AA Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24, 25 AA Stiedhl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Alfred Gainsborough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Author 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 9 B Charleston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 C Brown, M Raini, A Frank . . . . . . . . . . . . 19, 20 E Banner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11 E Cahill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30, 31 J Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26, 27 Joanna Treholm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17, 18 K Rani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28, 29 L Agieworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Noel Graham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 P Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 R Lemon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Richard Amstra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36, 37 Rowan M Barnes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34, 35 SA Fand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Susan Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 The children of form IB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12, 13 V Pranchitt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 W Satler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40, 41 Y Iman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38, 39